10of 30Chief A.J. Schammerhorn and Det. Gerald Wornick with a 1960s narcotics display case that is still being used as an education tool by the police department today. The case contains the most common drugs and drug paraphernalia.Photo: Pasadena Police Department/Facebook

24of 30In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the police department used the Astrodome parking lot as a driver training site. In 2000, the department got its own driving track that is now used by other departments.Photo: Pasadena Police Department/Facebook

Sixteen months ago, the appointment of Al Espinoza as Pasadena’s first Latino police chief was seen as a sign of welcome change in the new administration of Mayor Jeff Wagner.

Hopes were high that the appointment of the 37-year veteran would help bridge the gap between city leaders and Pasadena’s Latino residents, whom a federal judge found had seen their clout diluted by revisions to the City Council election system.

This week, the City Council voted 7-2 to accept Espinoza’s resignation effective Nov. 30 amid questions about the circumstances of his departure.

Two of the council’s three Latino members, Sammy Casados and Cody Ray Wheeler, voted against accepting Espinoza’s letter of resignation at a meeting Tuesday. Casados claimed that Espinoza was being forced out.

“I’m not gonna support this, I want you to stay,” Casados told Espinoza, who sat in the front row at the meeting but did not respond to any of the comments.

“It’s a political thing,” he continued. “Chief has done nothing wrong and there’s no basis for this retirement — man’s been forced out.”

Wagner, a retired Houston police officer, banged the gavel and said Casados was out of order.

“Let’s keep personnel information out of this,” Wagner said. “If you read the man’s letter of retirement, you’ll see why the man’s retiring.”

Casados later told the Houston Chronicle that he received an email from the city's human resources director, Daniel Pennington, hours after the council meeting announcing that Assistant Chief of Police Josh Bruegger would take over as acting chief effective Nov. 7.

The mayor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

When initially contacted, Espinoza did not address Casados’ assertion that the chief was pressured to leave but shared the letter of retirement he had sent to city staff and council members on Oct. 24.

Late Thursday, he responded to a followup email, "Every Police Chief serves at the pleasure of the Mayor," he wrote.

His letter provides no reason for the retirement but recounts Espinoza’s career of almost 39 years with the police department.

“As I worked myself through the ranks of the Pasadena Police Department, I have always supported unconditionally my fellow officers in the Pasadena Police Department' s mission in keeping our community safe and secure,” he wrote.

Espinoza’s letter highlighted programs that he started as chief, including establishing an email notification system to inform council members of incidents occurring in their districts and providing the drug Narcan to all patrol officers for calls on opioid overdoses, a move that he said has saved three lives. He wrote that he also started the “Unidos Program” of casual meetings among Espinoza, other officers and Spanish-speaking residents to foster positive relationships.

According to the city’s website, Espinoza was promoted to sergeant in 1983 and assigned to the detective division where he investigated homicides, robberies and property crimes for eight years. He was promoted to lieutenant and supervised various parts of the police department including the police academy and the patrol, criminal investigations and special investigations divisions before becoming chief.

Shortly after his election in spring 2017, Wagner announced that Espinoza was his choice to replace retiring Chief Michael Thaler.

Earlier that year, a federal judge ruled in a voting rights lawsuit that the city had intentionally violated the rights of Hispanic voters and must revert to a 2013 election map for council seats based on eight single-member districts. Witnesses also testified that the city had systematically neglected the needs of its mostly Latino northside neighborhoods.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s ruling forced the city to abandon a system of six single-member and two at-large districts. However, the results were the same in elections that year. Three Latinos were again elected to the seven-member council, and none of three Latino candidates advanced to a runoff election to succeed the term-limited Johnny Isbell as mayor, whom critics had blamed for the inequity and intolerance.

Pasadena has a Hispanic population of over 60 percent, according to U.S. Census data from 2017.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Council members Don Harrison, Felipe Villarreal, Thomas Schoenbein and Bruce Leamon thanked Espinoza for his decades of service and offered congratulations.

“It was great for the diversity of this city,” Harrison said.

Wheeler thanked Espinoza, too, but with regrets.

“Chief, I don’t think it’s right,” Wheeler said. “I’m not gonna support this. You’ve been a police officer for six years in Pasadena before I was born. I’m not gonna be the one to have you leave.”